Three days later
Victor Stone was tinkering with some electronic device on a workbench in his bedroom-turned-lab when he heard a scratching sound at one of the windows. He turned to see a petit green squirrel sitting on his window ledge, scratching at the glass. Victor couldn't help but chuckle as he stood from the bench and walked over. He grinned at Garfield for an elongated moment before letting his friend in.
Gar jumped through the opened window and transformed back into a human. "Dude, were you just gonna leave me sitting out there all day?" the shape-shifter asked in amused incredulousness.
"No, but the look on your squirrely face was worth it."
"Humph. I'll bet."
Whatever laughter existed between them died a slow, agonizing death, consumed by the descending silence that grew with the realization that neither knew what exactly to say. The two friends had seemed ill at ease with each other these past few days, and hadn't been associating at all outside of class until today and Garfield's sudden visit.
"I've done a lot of talking" Gar said suddenly, cutting through the silence by being direct. "W—With Raven."
Victor nodded heavily, his head staying down. His shoulders sagged some with the gesture, signaling that he knew that the ensuing conversation was going to be about.
"She's… really powerful," Gar confessed, as though it were some prized secret. "If she knows what to look for, she can track anybody. Using just her mind—like Professor X but without Cerebro."
"So the girl's a mental bloodhound," Victor agreed dismissively. "So what?"
"Well, uh, you see," Gar stammered uneasily. "We were thinking about—er, we are—going to have her, ah, use her powers to—to find Robin."
Victor blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Vic," said Gar firmly yet quietly. He briefly dropped his gaze to his shoes before looking up into the half-cybernetic face of his friend again. "We… we want to talk to Robin."
"About what?" Victor asked, already having a guess.
Garfield seemed to take his time. His friend's apparent reluctance wasn't making this any easier. Once again he was reminded of Raven's question, and wondered what—if anything—Victor was afraid of.
"We've talked it out—Raven and me. And, well, we wanna be heroes, Vic. We want to ask Robin to teach us how to be heroes."
"Heroes?" Victor balked before he could help himself. "What? Like, become Titans or something?"
"The Titans don't exist anymore, dude," Garfield informed his friend. "They've all gone back to being sidekicks again. Me and Raven, we're nobody's sidekicks, but I doubt Robin will reform the Titans just for us."
"Yeah, and?" Victor prompted. "Don't tell me you and Raven are gonna team up by yourselves or something…"
Garfield winced. "I don't know what Raven's deal is," he confessed. "I decided to take a chance, and I asked her what she thought about me using my, er, gifts, for the greater good. She seemed… surprisingly enthusiastic about it—I mean, she actually listened when I brought it up, as opposed to ignoring me or telling me to go screw. She actually told me that—that it was a noble thing, what I wanted. That it—takes courage, n'all that. And I think I… impressed her, a lot… by having the balls to ask her."
"Okay," Victor conceded. "Yay you. That don't explain why she wants to go all vigilante, too. I mean, no offense man, but she doesn't really strike me as the type to—"
"To what, Vic?" Gar cut his friend off, slightly peeved. "The only reason she even went to the museum in the first place was cuz she thought I was in trouble. And then she stayed there, long enough to help. She healed that guard you know—the one that was shot in the stomach? And then she got us outta there, without having to deal with the cops or the Bat crew or anything. She may be able to, like, give Mr. Freeze lessons in being cold n'all, but I think, under all that ice-princess persona she's got that secretly… secretly, she just wants to help people, too."
"So she didn't give you a reason?" Victor asked, his tone more curious now than anything else.
"I—" Garfield cut himself off, suddenly unsure. He dropped his gaze to the floor again, if only momentarily, and Victor had his answer. "Now that I think of it, she did more listening than talking, dude. She's like, freakin' Counselor Troi or something—if you can get her interested enough to stop giving you the brush-off and actually listen to you. And… I dunno Vic, maybe she just wants to do some good or something, or maybe… maybe she's like me, and kinda sorta feels, I dunno, obligated to use her powers for good. But whatever, dude. She was the one who suggested finding Robin, and she was the one who said she'd do it. And she never said she was doing it for me, dude. She kept saying 'we.'"
Victor sighed, palming a hand down the human side of his face. "So you're seriously gonna go through with this?"
Garfield nodded. "Yeah, Vic. I am." Then he fidgeted nervously. "And I want you to think about it, dude."
Victor's eyes widened but Garfield cut him off.
"I'm serious," he defended. "I know what Raven said, and it all sounded like a load of BS to me. You came to the museum to find me, and then stayed even after you knew what I was planning to do. And even after we had our first brush with death and then freed the guards—you could have left then, but you didn't. You stayed for me, Vic. Right up to the end. And I don't care what Raven said; that took guts dude. I don't know what she thinks you're afraid of, but it's all crap to me."
Garfield was so emphatic and so sincere that Victor had to take a step back.
"Look, Gar," he began, raising his hands in surrender.
"No Vic," Garfield interrupted. "Please, just—just listen, okay? You took those two goons we faced to the woodshed, dude. And then it was you who got us into the control room, and you who freed the guards first. You were even the one to think of using the fire alarm as a way of protecting the exhibit and what did I do the whole time? Run around nearly getting shot and blown to bits. My efforts would have been one huge freakin' disaster dude if you hadn't-a been there with me."
Garfield blinked, pushing himself forward in the face of insecurity. This was too important to chicken out of.
"You and me, we made a good team back there. And even though I was the one cheering us on and everything… it was your show, dude. All the way. I know you'd make an excellent hero, Vic, and it's not because your dad turned you into a chrome-colored Darth Vader or nothing. It's because of who you are, Vic. Not—not what you are."
Garfield ran his hand over the back of his neck and seemed to intently study the Linoleum of Victor's floor. His cheeks flushed slightly from embarrassment and his green skin only did a passing job of hiding it.
An uncomfortable silence descended, now that Gar had finished speaking. The green shape-shifter seemed to be waiting on Victor, but the cybernetic teen was too taken aback to be able to vocalize anything of the myriad of thoughts suddenly swirling in his brain.
"Listen, Vic," Garfield spoke at length, cutting into Victor's maddening train of thought. "Raven and I are gonna be on the roof of the Drake building in Midtown tonight at midnight. Raven's gonna see if she can get Robin to go there—she's pretty sure she can do it. Hopefully he'll at least listen to us—really it'll all depend on what he says and if he even shows up. But… that's where we'll be, dude. And I'd… really like it… if you were there too, Vic. Not just cuz it would be totally awesome to have my best buddy at my side—which it so totally would be; but because—at least I think, Vic—that you'd be good. A good hero. So please… just think about it, okay?"
Victor sighed. What else could he do? "No promises," he muttered, defeated, needing to say something to placate his friend.
"I never ask for promises, dude," Gar returned quite seriously. "The roof of the Drake building. Midnight," he reiterated. Then he nodded once, turned into a green sparrow, and flew back out the window.
Victor stood staring after his best friend for a long moment. Then he turned his head and sought out the clock on the wall. It was only 2:17 in the afternoon.
Gotham
10:30 p.m.
Police Commissioner James Gordon stood on the roof of police headquarters, absently studying the skyline. Soon enough he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, signaling that he was no longer alone on the rooftop. He sighed, feeling his body tense automatically. Even familiarity can't undo years of military training and police habit, though for some reason today he chose to remain like that, and didn't turn around to ascertain the whereabouts of his invited guest.
"We've arrested a few vagrants today who swear on their mothers' graves that they've seen Croc down along the river," Gordon informed the darkness. "Down by the abandoned textile mill that the Penguin was using as a distribution center—until very recently."
Now the Batman strode purposely from the shadows. He had cleaned out the mill two weeks ago, turning up an entire array of stolen property, from estate jewelry to firearms waiting for resale by the Penguin's network. Grudgingly he had to admit that he wouldn't have found the location so soon without Batgirl's help, because it was her computer skills that unearthed the clues while he was too busy trying to track down the kidnapped daughter of a Gotham Knight's player to spend much time in the cave.
"I'll look into it," Batman vowed tonelessly, turning to go.
Gordon nodded absently as he switched off the overgrown nightlight that had summoned the Cape Crusader.
"Oh and incidentally," he segued. "My friend in New York has given me a detailed report of the museum case."
That stopped the Dark Knight in his tracks. He turned back around, and now finally he and Gordon stood face to face.
"Though I must admit I'm a little hurt that you didn't contact me first," Gordon admitted. "Xavier Cabrini and I have been friends since my Chicago days. Then I could have vouched for Robin from the get-go, instead of making Xavier do the legwork."
Batman's mind was racing. Xavier Cabrini: semi-retired FBI profiler and now head of the Psychology department at Hudson University and one of Dick's current professors.
"Robin sought out Cabrini on his own," Batman declared, his voice even. It was the literal truth.
Gordon was surprised by this revelation, but he covered his reaction well. "Well I suppose that makes sense," he appraised. "He would be familiar with Xavier from his work at Arkham, and a retired federal agent could at least point him in the right direction with a lesser degree of worry than one still carrying a badge and a gun."
Ever so slightly, the Batman nodded.
"Well anyway, Xavier has conferred with the agent he sent Robin to, and I've been 'officially informed' that the feds aren't going to try and apprehend the quote-unquote 'Gotham vigilant effort.'"
"Good to know." Another emotionless statement, though Gordon could somehow tell that secretly the Batman was pleased.
Then suddenly he sighed. "I'm getting breakfast with Barbara tomorrow morning—do you know she's already a senior? They just grow up so fast…"
Batman stood impassive.
Gordon seemed suddenly flustered.
"Children I mean," he clarified somewhat awkwardly. "It seems like only yesterday I accepted custody of my late-brother's daughter, and now I can't imagine my life without her in it.
Still the Batman stood, seemingly unresponsive. However, Gordon saw that he hadn't retreated back into the shadows yet—or worse, abandoned him mid-sentence. This was as attentive as Gordon has ever seen the Bat, and some quiet part of him was oddly encouraged by that.
"And it wasn't that long ago that you introduced a gangly runt of a kid in a brightly colored costume whose voice hadn't cracked yet as your partner."
Batman seemed to tense then. Gordon felt it more than he witnessed it. Yet still the Batman stayed, listening.
"When he disappeared around the holidays last year I didn't ask and you never said anything, but part of me wished that he'd hung up the cape and traded in the pixie boots for a normal life. But then he turns up in Manhattan with Batgirl and a new team of metas and completely foils Dent's plans with no damage to the exhibit and only minimal police casualties and I have to tell you, Batman, he's mightily impressed the feds—even an old cynic like Xavier. And I mean, sure, he's gone off on his own before and done some wonderful things with those Titan friends of his, but the small time crime they've helped to thwart is nothing compared to a well-played scheme of Harvey Two-Face Dent and if you had told me you were planning on letting Robin tackle the bulk of this one solo I would have had cause to finally chuck your masked hide into Arkham." Gordon's ramble suddenly stopped, and he sighed again, looking older than Batman could ever remember the man seeming.
"Since day one that kid has done nothing but prove that he's made for that kind of life—cut from the same cape you are," Gordon continued seriously, daring to address the Batman for once as a man in a suit and not an incarnation of fear personified. "You called Robin your partner, the world saw him as your apprentice, but—" Gordon faltered tripping mentally over his words. It wasn't often that the Batman had given him license to carry on like this—especially about something so… close to home.
"You should be proud of him," the commissioner said at last. "The little kid in bright colors has grown up into a force to be reckoned with, and as his mentor… you should be proud of him."
Gordon finished his speech, and all the while the Batman had stood by, silently and impassively listening to every word the police commissioner had to say. It was no secret that he held a soft spot for the Boy Wonder—along with every other Gotham City cop who was also a father. And yet, the Boy Wonder was a lot less 'Boy' and a lot more 'Wonder' now. He had grown up, and it seemed that now even Batman had acknowledged it.
The commissioner watched as his associate—his friend—quietly absorbed what was spoken to him. Then abruptly he turned to go, firing a jump line off into the night. Gordon blinked and thought he had imagined it, but it looked as though the edges of Batman's habitually stern mouth had tipped upwards slightly into the faintest of smiles.
"From one father to another…" Gordon said to the empty rooftop.
Long Island
10:45 p.m.
"You need to get better office hours." Special Agent Hernandez laughed slightly at his own joke as Robin emerged from the shadows down by the docks.
Robin simply stood there, half shadowed, silent.
"You know the Egyptian government has given both the NYPD and the local Bureau office official commendations?" Hernandez continued. "This must be how your buddy Gordon rose to power, by riding your boss's coattails."
"Gordon was the only clean police officer in Gotham," Robin deadpanned. "His ascension came on the coattails of the removal of corruption."
"Don't get cute with me, kid. I might not thank you for helping to jumpstart my career."
Ever so slightly… Robin smirked.
"Your help has been invaluable, agent."
"My help? It was you and your team that took Dent and his henchmen down. The civil servants were just window dressing."
Robin's jaw clenched at the mention of his 'team.'
"Look—er, Robin," Hernandez seemed uncomfortable calling the Boy Wonder by name. "Are these little clandestine meetings going to become a habit?"
"If I need you again I'll contact you," Robin replied.
"Yeah I figured as much," said Hernandez halfheartedly.
Robin's gaze narrowed. "Just say the word, agent, and you'll never hear from me again."
"Kid, I'd like nothing more. Something tells me that if I ever hear from you again it's because the shit's going to hit the fan, again."
"I don't need an ally in law enforcement to help me clear up old speeding tickets."
"Robin, I seriously doubt you need me at all."
"Your cooperation is a luxury," Robin told him. "I could make do without it, yes, but at a detriment."
"And while helping you gave me a nice feather for my fedora," said Hernandez. "It'll be nothing like the backlash if our connection is proven."
Robin sighed inaudibly. "It's your call, agent. You know the work I do, what I'm fighting for. I'd like to think I have proven myself to you. If you fear that greatly for your career then by all means, back out now."
Hernandez snorted a laugh. "Well, you certainly know how to make a point." Then he sighed. "Aw, hell. Greater good, and all that jazz."
Robin refrained from smiling. Instead he nodded.
"Just one question though," Hernandez added. "What if I need to contact you?"
Robin swiftly reached into some hidden compartment of his utility belt. He removed a canary yellow electronic disk that looked like a hockey puck and tossed it to Hernandez.
"This is a one-way transmitter," Robin informed him. "Press the button and it'll send out signal. Then I'll know to contact you."
Hernandez palmed the transmitter, feeling its weight, admiring it for what it was.
"I suggest you don't activate it from your office if you fear a signal trace," Robin added in all seriousness.
Hernandez chuckled at that, still paying attention to the device. Then finally he slipped it into his pocket and looked up.
Robin had vanished.
Somewhere in the distance, a cricket chirped.
"Well," Hernandez said to no one. "That's going to get annoying."
Gotham
11:30 p.m.
Batman was crouched on the roof of a small warehouse in the old garment district. If Killer Croc had gone to ground on dry land in the area, an abandoned warehouse would be the perfect spot for him to hide out in. His… interrogation…of some of the Penguin's known help didn't turn up anything fruitful but he doubted that Croc's apparent proximity to one of Cobblepot's operations was coincidence. So now the Bat was methodically checking out warehouses in the area, and he was just about to drop in through the skylight of this one when he heard a noise behind him.
"You still haven't improved your stealth," he said through a grimace.
"Hey, how did you know—"
The Batman suddenly stood from his crouched position and Batgirl bit back the rest of her question. It was pointless anyway.
"Your father expects you to be up early tomorrow," Batman said, turning slowly around to come face to face with Batgirl.
She didn't bother to ask how he knew that, too.
"We need to talk," she said sternly instead.
The Batman stood impassive.
"Look, you've been avoiding me for three days now!" Batgirl accused angrily. "If you have a problem with me that's not a good way to make it go away."
Batman's eyes narrowed menacingly. "I'm listening," he said, making the words sound more like a threat than anything else.
Batgirl sighed in frustration. "You've been a real hardass lately, you know that? One minute you're giving me an impromptu fighting lesson on some random rooftop and the next you're treating me like some stupid kid in a Halloween costume. I know that in the beginning you didn't like me much, but I like to think that I've proven myself to you, at least in some ways. Why else would you be spending the time to teach me proper batarang technique instead of telling my father all about my little after-school job? Now that Robin's in New York for the duration I want you to be straight with me for once. Either let me be your partner or tell me to go screw, but for the love of God tell me how it's going to be."
The Batman stood stonily silent. Batgirl felt that he was staring through her almost, and yet at the same time, his Starlite gaze was oddly vacant.
"Cripes, it's like talking to the bloody wall!" Batgirl exclaimed angrily. "If I didn't know better I'd say that this shit is what pissed Robin off the most."
Batman's eyes narrowed again. "What do you want, Batgirl?"
"Oh ferchrissakes!" She fumed, stomping a foot and turning aside. "Typical Bat, never answering a question. You wanna know what I want? Well listen chucko, I'll tell ya. I want you and your goddamn boys club to start taking me seriously. I want to make a difference in this God-forsaken city of ours. I want to put the damned unreachable criminals behind bars so that my father can sleep better at night. I know I'm not as good as Robin, and I don't want to take his place exactly, but I want you to teach me how. Dammit, Batman, I want you to make me your Goddamn partner!"
Batgirl's Irish temper had run away with her, but the Batman stood unaffected. He was silent in the wake of her tirade, and Batgirl could feel his coldly scrutinizing gaze and knew that he was sizing her up.
"Robin trained for three years before he was allowed to patrol the streets," Batman stoically informed after a time. "And even then, there were times when he was not allowed out of the Cave. My subordinates need to be good soldiers. I need to trust that under any circumstance, my orders are obeyed. Without that trust, there is no partnership."
Batgirl's eyes hardened. "And you don't think I can follow orders?"
Batman was silent.
For a moment Batgirl wavered, her memory of charging blindly into the museum—almost to disaster, leapt to the forefront of her mind. Robin had ordered her to stay out…
"That's all nice and black and white, Batsy," Batgirl said at length, "but do you have any idea how the trust in a chain of command is built? Your orders are only followed if your so-called soldiers trust your judgment, and they can't trust your judgment if they don't first trust you. And you of all people should know that trust has to be given before it's earned—you had to trust my father first, before you expected him to trust you back. Or don't you remember."
Batman remained infuriatingly silent.
"Look," Batgirl tried again. "I may not know all of what happened between you and Robin—"
"That's none of your business," Batman interrupted firmly, surprising her with the cold vehemence of the even more surprising interjection.
"You're right," Batgirl conceded, "it's not. But I'm not Robin. And I think maybe you need to remember that, or something. So you and he had a falling out, sucks but it happens. Well I'm still here, and—despite what charming company you've been, I still want to be your partner. I'm not Robin, I'm Batgirl. Give me a chance. I won't let you down."
Batman was silent for many moments. Soon Batgirl's impatience grew to hesitancy, and then almost into fear as the minutes stretched by. Batman was making some sort of assessment—that much was obvious. He was trying to decide whether or not to accept her, and Batgirl felt butterflies grow in her stomach the likes of which she hasn't seen since her first inter-city gymnastics meet.
Then finally, at long last, Batman came to a decision. "Killer Croc has been spotted in the area. We need to ascertain whether or not he using any of these abandoned warehouses as a safe house."
Batgirl's sudden smile could have shamed the sun. It took all of her poise not to forget herself and whoop for joy there on the rooftop. As it is, she trotted over to the Dark Knight with nothing but eager anticipation—and gratitude—shining in her bright green eyes.
"We'll need to get you a new cowl," Batman said. "You eyes give too much away."
Batgirl's grin faltered slightly and she bit her lip. She remembered all too well the looks that Robin had given her that night, and the look that Batman had shared with his former partner, and she thought of all the sudden implications of hiding one's eyes behind those cold, sterile white lenses. But if eyes are the window to the soul… perhaps it is the soul that needs such protection.
Yet Barbara has seen both of their eyes, and knew then that the mask that Batman wore in the daytime was even more effective than the one he used at night.
"Yeah," she simpered. "Sure thing boss."
Batman then turned and crouched next to the skylight, with Batgirl dropping to a knee down beside him.
"Do you think, this time, you'll let me see how to get to the cave?" she asked tentatively, not wanting to push her luck but at the same time needing to ask.
"Don't push it," Batman gruffly replied.
Batgirl couldn't help the smirk. "I don't see what the big deal is," she confessed. "After all, I've already seen the rest of the house anyway."
Manhattan
12:17 a.m.
Raven was hovering somewhere behind where Garfield sat cross-legged on the roof of the Drake building. He could hear the monotonous drone of her nonsensical chanting but had long since tuned it out, preferring the company of his own thoughts to Raven's repetitive gibberish. Before she started she had told him that she was going to try to find Robin through the astral plane the same way she'd found both him and Victor just days ago. Now there was nothing to do but wait to the lulling sound of Raven's meditative chanting as it droned on as the minutes slowly ticked by.
Meanwhile, behind him…
"Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…"
Raven's soul self was flying high above Manhattan, hoping that this island was now the Boy Wonder's stomping ground.
"Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…"
She chose midtown because her search could fan out across New York like the ripples thrown from a stone tossed in water.
"Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…"
With the Drake Building as the effective epicenter, Raven was scanning the astral plane for that familiar psychic signature. She had touched it once before, a bit more intimately than she had ever felt another mind without consent. Raven hoped to track its echo back to the source.
"Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…"
She was confident that she could do this, with Robin's psychic footprint still imprinted on her mind. Her third eye sought that familiarity and she would not accept the possibility of failure.
There was simply too much at stake.
"Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…"
Then suddenly:
FLASH!
A rain-slick street.
Potholed.
Dimly lit.
Gasp!
FLASH!
Six shadows.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine!
FLASH!
A spike of fear.
Moans of desire.
Jagged, staccato laughter, cut short by—
FLASH!
Raven's eyes snapped open, burning molten pewter for half a second before she collapsed back down to her knees on the rooftop, gasping, panting, breathless. Desperately she groped through her mind, trying to snatch the final clue almost out of thin air.
"Raven?"
The gothic sorceress started at the sound of her name. Her head snapped around and she saw Garfield hovering nearby, curious and concerned.
"He's… he's in an alley," Raven managed.
"Who? Robin?"
Raven nodded. "He's not alone."
"Batgirl?"
Raven shook her head. "Trouble."
Garfield dropped to a knee beside her. "Can you find him again, Raven?" he asked, gently yet desperate.
Raven swallowed thickly and then nodded. She took a deep, calming breath and the tremors she didn't even notice faded away. Raven shoved herself back into a lotus position while Garfield knelt close by. She shut her amethyst eyes and eased herself back into a meditative state.
"Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…"
Her third eye zeroed back in on the sudden flame of Robin's familiar determination.
It wasn't hard to find.
A flash of burning yellow across her vision… a flickering street lamp, momentarily illuminating a sign…
Raven sat back and opened her eyes again. She saw Gar's expectant face regarding her intently.
"He's uptown," she said, her voice once again its usual, toneless self. "Harlem."
Garfield gulped. "And there's trouble?" he squeaked.
"I can take us there," Raven deadpanned, standing.
Garfield scrambled to his feet as well. He was just about to open his mouth to reply when—
"Yo!"
Both he and Raven jumped at the sudden voice. They turned on their heels and as one sighed in relief to see Victor now hurrying across the roof from the access door.
"You guys are still here," he said when he reached them. "Good."
Garfield was grinning from ear to ear. "DUDE! You came!"
Victor sighed. "I'm here," he said, as though he were confessing to a terrible crime.
"So are you, like, gonna join us?" Gar asked, his voice shining with innocent hope.
"I have one question," said Victor by way of answer. Then he turned to Raven. "Why?"
The sorceress blinked.
"I think I got him figured out," Victor clarified, pointing at Gar. "What about you?"
"What about me?" Raven echoed flatly.
"Why are you here? What do you want from all of this—what are you out to gain by it?"
Raven blinked slowly, and it seemed as though her amethyst eyes stared through him. Victor shifted nervously despite himself and Garfield looked on in wonder.
"This world is rife with evil," Raven answered at last. "I can feel it. It pulses through this dimension like white noise. Always there, but always ignored. And the trend is… it's growing louder. Your imperceptive population continues about its business while evil is stirring, biding its time… gathering strength. In time it will grow too large to be ignored, but by then it will be too late. Like a shift in the tide… this is unavoidable, yet predictable, and as such… I cannot simply sit back and watch. When the tide inevitably comes in… I want to stand with those who batten down the hatches… intending to brave the storm."
Silence.
Both Garfield and Victor blinked. Then finally:
"Whoa, girl. Yoda says 'metaphors be with you.'"
Raven's eyes narrowed as Garfield chuckled ashamedly at Victor's observation.
"Ahem…" Victor tried again, running a hand over his bald half-human head. "And you're both serious about this?"
Raven was silent.
"Totally, dude," Garfield said seriously. "It's a party for the greater good, and everyone's invited."
"We should go," Raven interjected.
"Go? Go where?"
"Dude, Raven's gonna take us to Robin. He's kicking butt in an alley in Harlem right now."
Ever so slowly a smile came to Victor's face, and Raven sensed that it came from somewhere between quiet amusement and utter resignation.
"My mother was from Harlem," he said quietly to no one.
Garfield hesitantly stepped forward, his eyes wide and bright with hope. Hidden from view, Raven smiled, slight but warm.
"Come with us, Vic," Gar entreated. "Come be a hero."
A silence seemed to stretch into eternity. Victor's thoughts were of his mother. The scent of her perfume, the slightness of her laughter, the furrow in her brow she always seemed to wear when pouring over technical manuscripts at the dinner table… Everything his mother was.
Everything his mother should still be.
All he has left of her is memory, perfectly preserved inside a flawless cybernetic brain, which would forever echo with the sound of her final scream. His beautiful mother, whom he briefly followed to the grave, before returning to the world an electronic Frankenstein.
Victor had lived his cybernetic years regretting his life, angry for his father's interference and bitter towards his need to live—needed because it's the last thing his mother had ever wanted. His mother had died so that he could live… as a cyborg… an extraordinary feat of biomechanical engineering.
To strive for something extraordinary—that's what Gar had said. To find a purpose for his illness in the greater good—Gar's raison d'etre. But to find a purpose in the accident—in his mother's death? That such could have happened for the greater good?
He should be asking you… what are you afraid of?
Victor knew the answer.
He also knew exactly what his mother would say to that.
The smile fled, chased away by a hardened, serious expression.
"I doubt she'd like a bunch a punks messing up her town."
Gar smiled wide enough for the both of them. "DUDE!"
By the time their gazes returned to her, Raven's face was expressionless again. "Come," she said. "We may be needed."
A black sphere of obsidian billowed out from Raven's center, enveloped the trio, pinched in at the center and grew long as the top half elongated into wings stretched heavenward.
SKREEE!
And the three young heroes vanished.
Harlem
A woman was walking home from yet another late shift at the hospital. It was next to impossible to find a cab at this time of night in this neighborhood, and it was only seven blocks to her apartment. Four if she took the shortcut between the RMV and the old Methodist church.
Tonight she was just tired enough to test her luck.
Much to the delight of the local hoodlums that tried to call themselves a gang.
"Oh, you don't want to go that way," a voice called out from behind her.
The woman started and turned around. There were four shapes slinking out of the shadows into the guttering glow of the streetlamp.
"That's a dangerous road ahead," the voice continued.
His companions sniggered breathily. One of them licked his lips.
"You'd be safer to come back this way, with us."
The woman shrieked and spun around, hoping to make a mad sprint in three-inch heels down to the other end of the alley to supposed safety. She'd made it all of four steps before three more shadows drifted into the light ahead of her, blocking her path.
"We told you so," the voice called out from behind her.
More chilling laughter.
"Now you got to pay the price."
The woman trembled. She tried to scream but her voice was gone.
The seven gang-bangers closed into a circle around her, feral gleams in their eyes and hideous, breathy laughter parting their lips like hyenas getting ready to pounce.
"I don't think the lady wants to play."
Everyone gasped, startled. Heads snapped around to the source of the voice and saw a shadowed figure standing on the roof of the RMV.
Several thugs looked up. "The hell?"
The shadow stepped into the pale, faltering light. The red of his costume was a deep vermilion in the yellowish glow. His cape billowed slightly in some unseen breeze and seemed to cling to his shoulders like the shadows themselves. His head drifted down until his gaze burned them from behind narrowed Starlite lenses.
He scowled. "Let her go. Now."
The gang laughed, albeit nervously. The woman managed a quiet whimper.
Nobody moved.
Then suddenly Robin dove into action—literally. He tensed his legs and took a swan dive off the roof of the RMV. The crowd below was too stunned to react as Robin's outstretched hands connected with the lamp pole. He used his momentum to swing himself around, straight into the loose circle of thugs. They collectively gasped and scrambled to move out of the way as the woman shrieked and ducked.
Robin landed, rolled to a knee, and shot to his feet, a birdarang clutched firmly in each fist. Four of the thugs had darted to safety, inadvertently giving him room to stand protectively by the woman, who was on her knees and clutching her purse firmly to her chest.
The other three were on the ground by Robin's feet.
"Do you live far?" Robin asked the woman.
Still petrified, she didn't answer him.
"Ma'am?"
"Huh?" She started. Then she blinked, finally processing his question. "N-no," she stammered. "B-b-block and a h-half."
"Run home," Robin directed sternly. "Now. Call the police."
The woman hesitated, but soon scrambled to her feet. She glanced around—lost sight of the other four thugs but duly noted the three on the ground. Two were out cold, but one was starting to stir…
"You ain't goin' nowhere, pal," one of the other four called out from the darkness. He and his buddies had regrouped. Three were sporting knives and one had found a lead pipe.
Robin's eyes narrowed menacingly. "You so don't want to go there, pal," he spat the word back at the thug.
More breathy laughter. Teeth flashed through feral grins.
Garfield was weightless, floating. Free. The inside of the obsidian void was a kaleidoscope of shimmering colors. He couldn't feel his body and was completely unaware of where Raven and Victor were. Somehow he felt that they were right beside him, but since he didn't exactly have the capacity for feeling right now he might have wondered at how he managed that, if he wasn't so enamored with the changing hues of this pocket reality.
Sound rose in crescendo with the cascade of color, each one swirling to a different beat. Laughter, disjointed shouts, stray sobs, eerie whispers, all coming from the colors as though they were one and the same.
Then finally a jolt. The colors flashed to blinding white in a momentary vacuum of silence. Suddenly Gar was aware again of the ground beneath his feet as the white snapped to obsidian again, and the vacuum was ruptured by an intruding voice.
There's four of us and one of you. You're gonna wish you'd a minded your business.
FLASH!
An obsidian sphere suddenly formed, expanded, and burst like a reverse nova. A gust of supernatural wind and Raven was suddenly standing beside Robin, with Garfield and Victor flanking. The thugs gasped and the woman shrieked and hid herself in Robin's cape the way a four-year-old finds his mother's skirt.
Robin ignored her, his entire frame seeming to pulse with tension.
Then Garfield stepped forward with as much menace as his petit green form could muster.
"Oh yeah? Well now it's four on four, dude."
The thugs scoffed in disbelief and Victor suddenly strode forward to stand next to Garfield. He smacked a fist into his palm as he surged his power cells, glowing his cybernetics a hot, electric blue.
"You punks gonna bring it on, or what?" he spat at them.
The four thugs snarled and raised their weapons, shouting a din of obscenities as they charged.
Garfield transformed into a roaring lion and leapt protectively in front of the woman.
As the lion landed, Robin vaulted into the air out from behind its cover. Two birdarangs flew, knocking two switchblades out of two separate hands.
Raven's eyes flashed hot gray and a supernatural wind kicked at her hair as black tendrils of telekinesis shot forward and ripped a machete away from the thug holding it.
The swinging lead pipe was caught easily in one of Victor's hands. He frowned at the thug, dilated a red glowing eye, and crushed the pipe until it snapped in half. The top portion fell to the ground with a hollow THUNK just ahead of its lower half, which the thug dropped when his bowels released. He gulped and staggered back.
The lion growled.
Raven's eyes continued to burn as the supernatural wind swirled about her.
Victor folded his arms and glared, his cybernetics still glowing.
And Robin stood just ahead of them, cape catching the tails of Raven's breeze. His mouth was pursed into a thin line as his gaze bore down on the cowering criminals. His eyes narrowed threateningly in his mask.
"Go home," he commanded, in a voice that allowed no arguments. "And don't cause trouble again."
The thugs yelped and tripped over themselves, unable to get away fast enough, leaving their two unconscious brethren behind.
When they were gone, Garfield turned back into a human. He smiled congenially at the woman, who was still crouched on the pavement, and offered her a hand. Blinking, unsteadily, the woman accepted the help to her feet. Finally she was standing again.
"Are you okay?" Gar asked, his voice soft with concern. Behind him Raven stood, the wind gone and her eyes again frozen amethyst. She stood passively beside Victor, whose arms were still folded though his cybernetics were no longer glowing.
Robin stood like a statue. Cold, expressionless, observing…
"Y-yes," the woman stammered finally. "I-I think so."
Garfield smiled warmly at her.
"You should be more careful about where you walk alone," said Victor, striding forward to stand beside Garfield. The woman cowered slightly and Gar, glancing between the two of them, looked stricken. But Victor forced a smile and spoke through his teeth: "There ain't no safe roads anymore."
The woman seemed to recover more. The rest of her fear melted away. She managed a weak smile for her rescuers.
"Thank you," she said earnestly, her voice at last steady. She looked unblinkingly into Victor's soft brown and harsh red eyes. Ever so slightly, his smile turned genuine.
The woman then turned her gaze outwards, catching Raven's eyes and Robin's mask. She nodded at them. Then she flashed a shaky smile, nodded again, and turned on her heels and fled back down the alley.
Garfield and Victor followed her progress until she disappeared from view, each only half paying attention as they were simultaneously lost in a sea of their own thoughts. When they finally returned to the moment they turned back around and saw Raven and Robin, standing maybe ten feet apart and facing each other with mirroring expressions of passivity. The two boys found themselves unconsciously holding their breath.
"Robin," Raven spoke at last, more acknowledgement than greeting. "The Boy Wonder."
"You were at the museum the other night," Robin replied, his tone as fathomless as hers.
A beat.
Then Raven tipped her head, once, as if in admittance.
"You saved Batgirl," Robin added. "I… suppose I should thank you."
Raven blinked, her expression unchanging.
"We were all there that night," she said at length.
Robin's gaze flicked quickly to where Garfield and Victor stood before returning to Raven's amethyst eyes. Then it was his turn to nod.
"You were once the leader of a team of heroes," Raven stated, dispassionately informing Robin of this fact. She felt Robin tense at that, but his mind was dark, deliberately closed off with a tighter shield than even Dick had managed.
He neither confirmed nor denied her statement.
Raven continued, undaunted. "There were Titans, once. Teen Titans."
"What of it?" Robin's question sounded more like a threat than anything else. Garfield unconsciously shifted closer to Victor.
Raven was unaffected.
"Train us." Not a command but a passionless entreaty. "A new team of Titans."
"Why?" A simple question; no inflection.
Garfield stepped forward now, answering: "Because we're a trio of metahumans who wanna do some good."
Robin didn't seem to acknowledge him. His eye mask stayed fixed on Raven.
"Because this world is too full of evil," Raven replied, the ice princess melting slightly. "And not enough people with the courage and the will to combat it."
"The world needs more heroes," Garfield added. "Metas like us."
Robin's focus shifted at last. Garfield shifted nervously on the balls of his feet but his he held Robin's gaze levelly. Then when Robin passed to Victor, the cybernetic teen was silent for a moment and more reserved than his friend.
"We all figured that you could teach us how to do the right thing," he muttered dismissively.
"You know how to combat evil," Raven stated, catching Robin's attention again. "Teach us. Make us Titans."
"Because we want to help!" Garfield added.
Victor stood silent, but he nodded when Robin's gaze flickered in his direction.
Garfield's expression shone bright and hopeful. Raven stood stoically but her eyes held glimpses of that same hope, that same desire.
Robin stood staring, taking it all in, processing what was unfolding right before his eyes. Three gifted teenagers wanting to be heroes—seeking him out because they wanted to learn how to make a difference for good in this world. As Raven spoke to him he found himself believing her without question. Garfield was as transparent as a pane of glass—and quite possibly just as fragile, but he could be tempered. Robin saw the truth of that reflected in Raven's amethyst eyes, as though she was answering all of his questions before he'd even thought of them.
And Victor… Victor was searching for something. Something more than heroism or a group where he fit in. Robin gleaned that too, as well as he knew that Victor would stand beside Garfield through hell and back. Raven's eyes spoke that such loyalty could be nurtured, tapped into something more profound.
Dick Grayson stared out through the Starlite lenses of the Robin mask at the earnest upturned faces of his friends. He already knew their worth and found now that his assessments were justified. They were his friends and Raven's fathomless eyes spoke of the heroes they could become, if he would only show them the way.
Robin's hard, unforgiving countenance seemed to slowly retreat back into itself. Without really changing, the Boy Wonder revealed more of the boy, melting more into a human being before their eyes in the same fashion that Garfield and Victor had observed from Raven.
"So," he said with a slight smirk. "You want to be Titans?"
fin
AN-This series is continued in the story Beginnings.